Toussaint l'Ouverture leads a successful slave revolt against Napoleon, and Haiti becomes the world's first black democracy. Russia gets rid of Tsar Nicholas, and a utopian workers' paradise is established. Saddam Hussein is deposed, and the Iraqi mission is accomplished. Hosni Mubarak gets booted in the Arab Spring, and Egypt is free at last.

The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Gamer is epitomized by Alex Kosov, better known as Koss in the video game kingdom where he reigns. He's the 17-year-old Pinball Wizard of his time (today) and place (Ukraine).

The casual cruelty of the teenage pack has filled our headlines and courtrooms of late -- bullying and rape being perversely perennial crimes. Sad to say, there's nothing new about peer-and-sneer group pressure to do awful things collectively that you'd never do one-on-one. What's new is the generation's 21st-century obsessive/compulsive need to record and disseminate its antisocial behavior on so-called social media.

One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. It's "your F-16s versus our suicide bombers," a Palestinian tells an Israeli acquaintance. Innocent people -- delicately known as "collateral damage" -- die either way. It's just a different choice of device.